Anastasiu Pulls Upset

One season after she became Oregon’s first women’s Pacific 10 singles champion, junior Daria Panova made an early exit from the conference tournament Friday on Day 2 of the Ojai Valley tennis event.

USC freshman Anca Anastasiu started slowly but came back to eliminate the second-seeded Panova, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, in the quarterfinals.

“It was a good match,” Anastasiu said. “I thought I played pretty well.”

It was a good turn of events for California senior Raquel Kops-Jones, seeded first in the tournament and ranked third in the nation. Last season, she lost to Panova, 7-6 (6), 6-2, in the final. Kops-Jones will play Arizona’s Dianne Hollands in a semifinal today at 9:30 a.m. Anastasiu will play Stanford’s Alice Barnes in the other semifinal at 11 a.m. Kops-Jones is also playing in the Pac-10 women’s doubles draw.

In men’s singles, Washington junior Alex Vlaski is the lone 2003 semifinalist remaining. Less than 15 hours after a three-set second-round victory, Vlaski, the nation’s sixth-ranked player, eliminated UCLA’s Alberto Francis, 6-3, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals. Vlaski will next play USC’s Adriano Biasella at 11 a.m. Vlaski has lost in the Ojai final the past two seasons. Stanford’s Sam Warburg will play UCLA’s Chris Lam at 9:30 a.m in the other semifinal.

Top-seeded Travis Rettenmaier of Venice, who played briefly at UCLA, has lost 11 games in three matches in the men’s open field and will play fifth-seeded Bryan Juinio Saturday at 9:30 a.m. in a semifinal.

-- Elia Powers